What mindfulness means to me

Mindfulness plays a significant role in my life. I try to remain mindful as much as possible at every moment of the day. This is a challenge and requires discipline, but the path I am on is beyond my control.

It is a precious gift to me, something I do not want to do without. Without mindfulness, I experience distance, a disconnection. I then become entangled in my patterns. With mindfulness, everything becomes easier, clearer, more pleasant. By continuing to apply this and with the ever-increasing mindfulness energy, I notice that more and more patterns fall away from me, like leaves from a tree. In my lessons, I compare it to soaking stamps off envelopes in water. After a while, they simply come off, effortlessly. The stamps are the everyday things, or patterns; the glue is the attachment or identification with them. This identification is unnecessary and actually reinforces the process.

I am incredibly grateful that I have found a method that reverses this process of identification. The freer I become from identifications, the more moved I am by what I begin to see, like the gentleness and love that arises, but also the space, freedom, patience, and the unimaginable depth of the observer. I can't put into words how deeply all of this touches me. Teaching this, introducing others to it,  and guiding them on this journey, feels like coming home to me; this is what I want to do, and what I feel I need to do.

Teacher in physics

Besides mindfulness courses, I teach physics. I continue to be amazed by the phenomena of nature and the universe of which we are a part. I love sharing my enthusiasm and wonder with my students.